What he meant was: Do you need help getting across?
Yup one piece. Legs arms, everything.
Okay give me ninety minutes.
10-4.
Hig?
Yuh?
You take a fucking vacation?
Ah, the old Bangley.
I keyed the mike. Ninety minutes. Out.
It was already light. I was squatting in my spot below a slope of ponderosas—a thicket of willows and poplars at the base of the first hills where the creek swung to the south and our trail continued straight east. Across open ground. If I’d had my ducks in a row I would have been set up hours before dawn and not make Bangley walk across to the tower in daylight. He carried the CheyTac .408 which was a light sniper rifle as light as something with that much power can be. His pride and joy, made for walking if you have to walk and still be able to shoot someone in the lungs a mile away.
I waited ninety minutes with the sun full in my face, which to tell the truth was not the best stratagem, to walk into it half blind, and I was glad to know he was up there in his tower, sun at his back with a clear view to the first trees in perfect light. Had had trouble three times. The one was the girl with the knife which was no trouble at all. I was thinking how trouble was really the last thing I expected, how warm at dawn, fresh with the smell of new grass and early flowers, when I started to walk. I walked for more than an hour the load heavy on the level, both does quartered and piled in the sled, and I was more than halfway to the tower, laboring against the harness, pulling hard, when the radio strapped to my chest came alive.
Hig you got company. Urgency. A rare alarm.
Okay. Company.
I dropped the bridle and spun around. Back along the trail nothing. Tall sage, rabbit brush, gamma grass already knee high. Yellow and white asters blooming, fat bees already feeding, the trail smooth and empty behind me. Heart hammering.
Hig, they are stalking you. Quarter mile back. Read that? Quarter mile, a little more.
Okay. Okay. Got it.
Say 10-4. Repeat back the info. You’re a pilot for chrissakes.
Jesus Bangley.
Trying to get you to calm down. Focus on the details. One at a time.
Mother of christ. Who spawned this guy?
Pause.
10 fucking 4. Quarter mile. I am focused.
Good. Okay, turn back around. Now. Turn back! Look at me. Grab a water bottle. Stretch. Make like you are taking a break. NOW!
Okay, okay, got it.
There is no way they can hear us, Hig. The wind is them to you. They are upwind. Look natural. Stretch. Drink. Key the mike like you are scratching your chest. You are all alone out here. As far as they are concerned, Hig, you are solo. Single prey.
Fucking great.
Where’s your buddy?
My buddy? Oh, Jasper. Long story.
Short pause. Could almost hear the clicking, the slight recalibration of strategy.
Niner. Got that? Niner is the number. You got niner pursuers.
Niner? Holy shit.
Hig they know you are armed. They want your meat they want your weapon. They are not armed. Not with guns. Saw no guns. If they had guns you would be dead by now. Copy?
Yes, I fucking copy. Nine?
Hig listen. They have machetes. Looks like machetes or swords.
Swords? Fucking swords?
Hig, calm down. They are willing to take some losses. The way I see it. They really want your weapon.
Fucking Bangley. He was divining all this from two miles away. Standing in the tower leaning into the eyepiece of his spotting scope.
Great.
Willing to take some losses. Each one figuring it’ll be the other guy. They want to eat venison and they want the rifle. Read me?
Yes.
Say it Hig. Stay focused.
My heart was hammering. I almost laughed out loud. Right there with the sun at my back looking down the trail through the high brush with a frigging, practically a frigging division of visitors four hundred yards back.
Say it.
10-4.
Good. Settle your breathing.
Bangley, tell me what the fuck you want me to do? What should I do?
Breathe, I want you to breathe. They are stalking you Hig. They have all day. The way they see it. No rush. You are moving slow, they will close the distance. Little by little. Then they will charge you. They have done it before. They move like they have done this before. Copy?
Yes I fucking copy. 10-4.
Okay. You have the advantage. Advantage Hig. Right now you have the edge.
I do?
Fucking A, yes Hig. Listen to me.
I thought right then he sounded a little worried which didn’t reassure me. Nine was a lot of fucking visitors who wanted to kill you. Me.
Listen to me. Up ahead, east, maybe eighty yards, the trail drops into kind of a draw. Shallow, but deep enough. You stretch and pick up the rope like you are real fatigued and walk on ahead and down into that gully.
Bangley I am fucking fatigued.
Good Hig. That’ll keep you calm. No espresso for Hig, not at the moment. Steady hand. We want your hands good and steady. Now walk. There is a large dense sage bush or something on the north side of the trail right in the bottom. Couple of bushes. Perfect. You drag the sled behind that brush and conceal it. Cut branches if you have to. You got two animals in there far as I can make out. Correct?
You’re good Bruce. You’re incredible.
Pause while he took that in. Not sure if I was being sarcastic or not, didn’t even matter.
Glad that is dawning on you, Hig, I really am. The sled, the meat will be your cover. Case I am wrong about the guns. Case they have a weapon. A crossbow or something I can’t see. They don’t, but we want you covered. All exigencies.
He loved to say that. All exigencies. Well, it was the reason he was still frigging alive. I had to, I was handing it to him. Bangley.
You hide the sled and set up behind it. Got that?
Affirmative. Pause. Bangley?
Go ahead Hig.
My magazine holds five shots. One in the chamber. Six.
Pause. I could hear the breeze rattling the rabbit brush. Suddenly seemed really really quiet.
How am I gonna take out nine if they charge me? With six shots?
